Everybody Hurts
by staphylococci
Summary: Mid-Season 5. "Then it hit him, almost as violently as the garbage truck had struck the bus. The missing Vicodin. The alcohol in Wilson's voice. The pain. The agony. The phone call. House launched himself out of his chair, nearly falling to the ground in his urgency. He needed to go. He needed to go, and he needed to go as quickly as possible."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** First _House _story, first time posting here since '09 – under a new account. College nursing student, but will try to update, especially with the summer coming.

Not a doctor by any means, and still learning as a nursing student, so don't expect any brilliant diagnoses or medical conditions… writing almost entirely for the characters here. This should be short – maybe 3 or 4 chapters – but I just love exploring House and Wilson's friendship.

* * *

1.

Foreman's eyes met House's as he limped slowly into the office. "Patient complains of unsteadiness, nausea and vomiting, and not feeling like herself. Low BP and lightheadedness. Admitted to the ER after she was attacked on her 20-mile run today. Other than that, everything seems normal. She's a runner, so I'm thinking that may be able to explain the –"

"Patient has Parkinson's. I had faith you uneducated morons could solve that great mystery without me. Figure out whatever it is real doctors do and break the sad -"

"She had a seizure in the ER," Thirteen interrupted, sliding the file toward the end of the table where House stood, leaning against his cane. "That's when they sent her over to us. None of her symptoms seem to be related to a seizure, unless there was drug involvement, epilepsy, or a brain tumor, none of which were supported by the tests or patient history."

"She also doesn't have Parkinson's," Taub added knowingly.

House cocked his head to one side. "Patient is also hypoglycemic," he added, placing his cane on top of the file and knocking it to the floor unforgivingly. "Try some carboloading and she'll be ready for the marathon."

Taub bent over to pick up the scattered charts, collecting them into the folder. "I know the concept of 'normal' confuses you, but _aside _from the fact that her blood sugar is _high_, I'm not convinced that a distance runner would be an undiagnosed Type I diabetic who _coincidentally _happens to come down with Parkinson's."

"Then you're an idiot," House mused.

"She's eighteen," Thirteen fished, her voice suggestive.

House pursed his lips. "Okay," he offered on an exhale. "What causes unsteadiness and high blood sugar in a girl with perky ta-tas?"

"Could still be diabetes," Kutner tossed out. "Probably not type II, but undiagnosed type I is still a possibility."

"Brilliant!" Taub fired back. "Undiagnosed juvenile diabetes in a _marathoner_. How did I not see that one coming?"

"Just trying to explore all options. It's never something we suspect," Kutner defended.

Taub offered a pointed look of annoyance. "It's never something _impossible._"

"Au contraire," House prodded.

Thirteen sat up further. "Seizure could be a result of the trauma," she said, eyes alight. "She did hit her head at some point during the attack."

"Unlikely that she'd seize after a couple of hours in the ER," Foreman disagreed. "Vertigo could explain it. Low BP is coincidental because she's an athlete, hyperglycemia is caused by carb-loading for her run today. Only other symptoms we really have are the unsteadiness and change in personality."

House rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because seizures happen to the best of us." Sarcasm.

The door swung open and a flustered-looking Wilson poked his head in. "Sorry to interrupt… can I talk to you?" he asked quietly, meeting House's gaze. House noted something important in his eyes. The urge to push him away reared its head – it always did when someone was being particularly needy – but instead, he dismissed his team. "Run the toxscreen again, get a better history than the dingbats in the ER did. Throw her on a treadmill and see if any of her symptoms relapse. And someone hit Kutner for thinking it was diabetes."

The team shuffled past Wilson, none with much to say. Since Amber's passing and his return to Princeton-Plainsboro, _nobody_ seemed to have much to say. House was doing his best to act like everything was the same – truly not much _was_ different, as Wilson was always recovering from some sort of romantic blow, it seemed – but it was difficult when everyone in his environment was so used to babying those who had lost something. So Wilson had lost love. Whatever. House had lost the use of his right leg.

Wilson broke the silence as House dropped himself into a chair. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything important." He sat down and fiddled mindlessly with his tie, not allowing his eyes to reach his friend's. House directed his head downward, but looked up at Wilson.

"You know how I hate to be bothered when I'm calling them incompetent," he half-teased. "Really disrupts my flow."

Wilson finally reestablished eye contact, and House felt the heaviness in his heart. Something was wrong, and it wasn't something that should be joked about. Not that he wouldn't joke about it.

Weighing his options, he settled with letting himself soften for a moment. He tilted his chin toward Wilson. "Everything okay?"

Perhaps it was the shock of House's concern, or the sheer existence of concern despite its owner, but Wilson took this as a cue to crumble slightly, letting down his usually well-kept guard. "It's gotten harder," he mumbled, to nobody in particular. "It's supposed to get better, but it's gotten harder."

House said nothing.

"It's been months," Wilson ruminated, dread tainting each syllable as it emerged from his lips. "And I still see her everywhere. I can hear her voice, smell her hair… everyone said it would get better."

House grabbed on to this as if it were a lifeline. "Not before it gets worse," he quipped. "As a doctor, you'd think that you knew that."

"This isn't some mysterious condition that you can treat like a physical illness," Wilson countered, throwing his hands up. "You can't put a band-aid and Neosporin on something like this." His head fell into his hands, propped up by his elbows resting on his knees. His hands found the top of his head and raked the hair back and forth, forcing it into a messy tangle of sunburnt straw atop his head. "I'm going insane here."

House took a moment to think. He knew Wilson, and knew he could endure pain. Maybe not physical, but certainly emotional. Hell, he spent each day watching people die, watching loved ones grieve, meeting children who would grow up without parents, and parents who would grow up without children. If anyone was the expert on consolation, it was him, not House. As a friend, he'd be better off if Wilson had been shot – it was easy enough to mop up a bullet wound and suture the holes closed, but dealing with something like this?

What was there to say? She was dead. There was nothing either of them could do about that. Retrospectively, House could've not called Wilson that night at the bar. He could've not gone to the bar. He could've done a lot of things differently that would've kept Amber alive. But he didn't, and he couldn't undo what he _had _done.

He picked six words to best describe how he felt. "You need to get over it."

Wilson looked up, incredulous. "Excuse me?" he managed, nearly seething.

"She's dead." It was a simple statement. "You're alive. Quit _acting_ like you're dead."

"Yes, she's dead," Wilson agreed. "All of us can agree on that. You, however, can sit there shrugging your shoulders at me like I just killed an insect and am overly emotional about it. I _loved _her, House – why is that such a foreign concept to you? I loved her, and she's dead, and she's not coming back any time soon." Wilson finished with a huff, trying to catch his breath before it caught him.

"Do you want me to pity you?" House asked, walking toward the corner of the room. "Pretty sure you've got enough of that. You were pitiful before your life turned into a Lifetime special."

Wilson was behind House before his chair had even hit the floor. "You're _so _wrapped up in your little world of deflection, of sarcasm, of… of… pig-_headedness_," Wilson spewed, "that you can't maybe feel a little _sympathy _for someone you've claimed to be _friends _with for decades?"

House drew a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching his sinuses and clenching his eyes shut. How to react? As an ass, as himself, as he always was? Or as a friend, something harder to reach for, harder to portray?

Harder, he mused, to _be_.

He felt pain for Wilson. It was true. Of course it was true – they were friends. He wasn't incapable of caring, though everyone thought he was. It was just easier this way, he knew, to keep himself separated from others, to give tough love. Wilson, of all people, could use it. He had just admitted to wanting sympathy, for Christ's sake.

His reverie was broken by an aggravated growl from Wilson's throat. House turned in time to see him retreat out the door, lab coat billowing like a cape behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews and follows! Lovely to be back to writing, no matter what the magnitude. I feel my words have been a bit repetitive so be mindful that I have been working on that, and also please excuse any out-of-character phrases or actions, especially from House himself. It's quite difficult to write tender and personal things from House's perspective... but of course you all know that :)

* * *

2.

_Crunch_.

Juice from the apple sprayed like aerosol into the room as House took a large bite, eyeing his team. They filed through the glass doors one by one, each wearing a look of defeat. "Second toxscreen was negative," Foreman stated lamely.

House stopped chewing and cocked his head to one side. "Do you know me?" he pondered uselessly.

"So was the third one," Kutner added with a look of annoyance.

House sighed and set the nearly-whole apple on his desk as Thirteen stared at the charts. "What if the hyperglycemia isn't just a coincidence; what if it's a symptom? The only way we can know is by running an A1C test – figure out how long it's been high."

"More likely that it's high from the two dozen bagels she's eaten this week," Kutner said.

"We should still run the test." Thirteen's green eyes, like daggers, turned to House.

He shrugged. "Sounds good. I'll be sitting here twiddling my thumbs, anxiously awaiting your return." The four of them left the room at his dismissal.

The sun had long since set over New Jersey, but House was still reclined in his office, feet propped up on his messy desk. A case as nonfatal as this didn't quite preoccupy him. This left him alone with his thoughts. Or, better yet, left alone with his giant tennis ball. The soft _thwack_ it made against the wall was constant, even reassuring in its annoyance.

When the phone rang in his office, he answered it on the first ring, but said nothing. Whoever was calling knew he would be here; whoever was calling knew who he was. He didn't need to introduce himself.

"Do you want to come over?" Wilson's voice pierced his eardrum like a bad song. Almost instinctively, House drew the phone away from his ear. He sounded drunk, his voice slick and heavy with the promise of liquor.

"What's wrong? Your hand not good enough company?"

There was a sad sound on the other end of the line – one House couldn't quite place. "House," Wilson simply breathed. Then, he uttered something completely unexpected: "Please."

Something in House changed then, and it was something that he hadn't been sure he was feeling in the first place.

"I told you to get over it earlier, I'll tell you to get over it now," House said coldly. "I'm not coming over so I can entertain your little soap opera. She's _dead_." He nearly shouted the last two words. He placed the phone on the hook passionately and leaned back in his chair, trying to dull the vicious migraine that had just settled like a mushroom cloud over his frontal lobes.

"Hyperglycemia's a symptom," Taub announced, shoving through the door. House's eyes flew open in surprise. "A1C test showed a consistent blood sugar of over 250."

"That leaves Cushing's –"

"—no physical symptoms and normal cortisol levels rule that out—" Taub interjected.

"—or something's wrong with her pancreas." House stopped walking and racked his brain. "Get an ultrasound and a CT of her abdomen." He paused. "And double check that it's not Cushing's while you're in there."

This left him again alone with his thoughts, which unsurprisingly dwindled to Wilson.

A man who had everything – a great job, great friends, four fully-functioning limbs – let, of all people, the Cutthroat Bitch ruin it like this. He'd been devastated when he'd divorced his wives, of course; he wasn't heartless. But this was a different sort of divorce. This one had been forced. Neither party had given up on the other. There was no loss of love.

He wondered idly of the times he had almost died, letting his cane turn like a baton between his long fingers. Would Wilson have reacted in the same way? If House, the day of Amber's death, had followed suit, dressed in white robes and pure intentions, would Wilson have been doubly upset? It would be a miracle if he survived, he mused. It was a miracle he was alive now.

House reached into his desk for his Vicodin, surprised when the orange bottle did not appear in his fist.

Another light switch moment occurred to him, but this was not like the others.

It was almost as if he _had_ died – at least to Wilson. Vulnerability breeds neediness, and neediness breeds disappointment when people do not provide. Wilson had been reaching for House almost embarrassingly, putting his dignity into House's bitter hands. It wasn't rocket science, House knew; but somehow, he could not bring himself to give in to Wilson's weakness.

Then it hit him, almost as violently as the garbage truck had struck the bus. The missing Vicodin. The alcohol in Wilson's voice. The pain. The agony. The phone call.

House launched himself out of his chair, nearly falling to the ground in his urgency. He needed to go. He needed to go, and he needed to go as quickly as possible. Dragging his useless leg behind him, House hurried toward his motorcycle, leaving the once-bitten apple, oxidized and forgotten, atop his desk.

* * *

He knocked once. He knocked twice. By the third time, House had set into a full-on panic. Blood was singing beneath his skin, adrenaline pumping through his entire circulatory system. "Wilson," he shouted sternly, slamming his fists against the door. "Let me the fuck in."

Instinctively, he slapped his thigh, keys jingling in his pocket. He grabbed for them blindly, not sure why he hadn't reached for them in the first place. This wasn't exactly a situation where he felt the need to respect Wilson's privacy, not that he felt that too often anyway.

The key ring sat in his palm. Fuck. Why did he have so many keys? He cursed himself. From now on, no making a spare key for everybody he knew. Certainly didn't seem so funny in situations like this. He finally found Wilson's – it seemed to be the last one he had left to try – and forced the door open, nearly falling on his face as he stumbled into the apartment.

"Hey!" he shouted at nothing, no one. He limped into the living room, his eyes wildly searching for his friend. Without thinking, the name slipped out of his mouth: "_James_!"

He turned his watch over on his wrist, checking the time. _11:25_. What time had he called the office?

Hanson's "MMMBop" sounded from his pocket, no longer funny so much as it was haunting. He silenced it immediately, his eyes reaching for something to grab onto. Finally, he found it.

Leg pain nearly gone, House traveled faster than he had in a while toward the bathroom, his heart sinking as he did. The light was on, shining bright from beneath the door. "James," he called, trying to mask any sort of worry that may escape. "You asked me to come, and I'm here."

As if bargaining with him would change what he was afraid he'd find.

He threw his body into the door and used all the strength he could muster to force it open. A second time. A third time. Just when it seemed his body weight would not be enough, the door broke open, spilling light into the dark living room. The first thing he saw was a handgun, followed by a very unconscious James Wilson sprawled across the floor.

A slur of profanities fell from House's mouth before he could stop them, not that he would've if he had thought to. Before he realized his hands had checked for a pulse, his brain had registered that there wasn't one.

When the fuck did Wilson buy a gun?

His peripheral vision was gone, dark corners pushing in. A whole new sort of claustrophobia crashed down on House – not a feeling of not enough oxygen, or not enough space, but not enough time, not enough words he could say, and not enough things he could do.

CPR was second nature at this point, his lips meeting Wilson's with no hesitance or snide remarks. He tasted like vomit and liquor. House felt no emotions or sensations. He was a robot performing CPR on a stranger. In a bathroom. With a gun, an empty prescription bottle labeled _Gregory House_, and an empty fifth of vodka mingling dangerously on the linoleum.

"Come on," he pleaded. "Wilson. James. _James_!"

Another round of CPR. Thirty more compressions, two small breaths. Another. And another.

By the grace of God, a cough and a pulse. A surge of blood from the left ventricle, into the aorta, shooting scarlet blood like a steady stream of lead bullets into the rest of his body.

The next thing he knew, his phone was to his ear. He couldn't even remember who he had called. "I'd ask what on earth you could possibly want, but nothing could surprise me," came the groggy voice on the other end. "I sent your team home."

"Cuddy." He stated. That's who. Of course. Her name tasted funny in his mouth. "Cuddy. I'm at Wilson's, I don't have time to explain. I need you at the hospital."

"What are you –?"

"Now," House yelled, letting the phone drop to the floor.

The entire exchange had probably been a total of thirty seconds, but time was precious and he was kicking himself for even calling Cuddy. The debate was impossible: call an ambulance and risk Wilson possibly losing his license and his ability to practice what he claimed to love? Or save his life? It seemed doubtful that anyone in their right mind would let a suicidal doctor practice, of all things, oncology. If Cuddy knew, maybe she could prevent it – maybe keep some meaning in his life after he'd lost, what he believed, was everything.

Wilson was breathing, with a pulse. What was next? House loosened his friend's tie, unbuttoned his top buttons and pants. Checked his airway again. Ignored the growing pallor of his skin.

"Stay with me," he ordered. His voice was angry. The phrases were leaking from his mouth now, things that other doctors always said that he never found useful. What good was trying to _convince_ a dying person to stick around? "Dammit, Wilson, you can't do this," he continued, blindsided by his own words.

Above all other things, his keen eye had picked up on something: there was no blood. Why was this important? He couldn't remember. _No_ _blood_, he thought. No blood meant no exterior wounds. Which meant…

He hadn't used the gun.

But he'd wanted to.

_Jesus_ _Christ_.

House pulled off his jacket and tossed it over Wilson's still body, grabbing his fingertips and cursing when he saw cyanosis. _Shock_. He propped Wilson's feet up onto the toilet and checked his pulse and respiratory rate again. Low. _Low_. Everything was low.

Wilson sputtered again. House didn't remember turning him to his side, but was thankful he did. "_Wilson_," he shouted, his thoughts colliding like atoms. His voice picked up an aggravated tone. "What the hell did you do?"

Wilson's eyes were rolling, unable to focus. House couldn't think. No clarity. No sense.

If Wilson couldn't practice, so be it. At least he'd be alive.

House punched 911 into his phone, the first time without realizing he hadn't hung up on Cuddy in the first place. When the call was connected, he didn't allow the dispatcher her miserable introduction. "Severe overdose of Vicodin and a fifth of vodka. Could use a little help here." He rattled off Wilson's address. "And _hurry_," he added as an afterthought.

The tunnel vision was fading; Wilson was alive, at least; that fact alone proved that House had been right – the call had been a desperate cry for help. The thoughts flooded in_: I shouldn't have called him that night. I shouldn't have gone to the bar. I shouldn't have gotten on the bus. I should've just come when he called. I shouldn't have told him to get over it. Shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't…_

This was not the best time to fall out of character, House humorlessly thought to himself. Lapsing into better judgment could not afford to be his tragic flaw, not now.

Wilson's eyes were shut.

"Stay awake," House commanded harshly, slapping his face to wake him up. He turned on the faucet and tossed cold water onto his friend. Wilson's face was its own entity, acting by its own accord – eyelids and pupils confused. His eyelids started to droop, falling like blinds over his irises. "_Stay. Awake!_" he repeated, jamming two fingers into his neck_. One, two, three, four..._

Wilson was coughing, choking, a pitiful mess lying in his own vomit.

House wasn't focused on the EMTs shuffling in, like angels clad in blue scrubs, lifting the soiled body of his best friend onto a stretcher. He wasn't fazed by the questions they asked or the answers he provided. What he focused on, however, like a stream of sunlight in a shadow, was the single bullet lodged in the shower tile, a reminder that reached up, like a clenched fist, and squeezed on House's windpipe.

He _had_ used the gun, House realized then.

He had just missed.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Most people claim that during particularly distressing times, they remember things in a blur – a moment here, a moment there, but nothing continuous by any means. For House, it had always been the opposite – mundane things came and went, but the important things were always one fluid memory, like a scene shot in a single take. His mom used to joke that the blueness of his eyes made everything seem much clearer, and that was what made him so intuitive and clever.

He remembered shoving the paramedics out of the way and administering the EKG himself, setting up the IV and hanging the bag of fluids. He remembered Wilson fading in and out of consciousness, remembered the look of panic his face when he came above the surface far enough to realize what exactly had happened.

They arrived in the ER and were immediately intercepted by Cuddy, whose face changed from confused to concerned to downright terrified in three quick stages of emotion. "What did you _do?"_ she accused loudly, the soft padding of her slippers accelerating as her pace quickened. He felt a surprising twinge of hurt from Cuddy's accusation – as if House would've allowed, let alone _caused_, Wilson's current state. "House," she tried, the syllable caught in her throat. She tried again, hoarser this time. "_House._"

The conversation would have to wait – Wilson was triaged immediately, and House stuck around long enough to ensure that he would live. His stomach was pumped and charcoal was forced into his body, a foul substance that absorbed the leftover toxins in an attempt to not completely destroy his liver. House settled himself into a chair in the waiting room, not at all surprised when Cuddy stood in front of him.

"House."

That seemed to be the go-to, didn't it? His last name, a noun, a safe haven. The thing that said it all, but said nothing as pretext.

"House."

"Enough." House spat the word out at her feet. "I'll talk. Give me a second," he bargained.

Cuddy took this as a cue to curl up into the chair next to him. Her eyes prodded, but did not poke, him.

He finally found his voice. "He's still upset about Amber," he offered, a useless statement. Cuddy nodded, urging him to go on. "He tried to talk to me today, and I pushed him away. He called me and asked me to come over, and I pushed him away." House shoved his fingertips into the corners of his eyes, trying to will away the guilt. "I didn't notice until _after _the phone call that my recently filled Vicodin prescription was no longer in my drawer."

Cuddy cursed under her breath.

"Broke my way into his apartment, and then into his bathroom. Found him with the empty prescription and an empty fifth, and a lot of vomit." House stopped to let it sink in, then added: "Took some elbow grease and CPR, but I managed to get his heart going again."

His boss, usually so put together, always balanced on the balls of her feet to strike at whatever came her way, wavered. Her eyebrows knitted in the middle of her forehead. "I heard you on the phone," she said in a haunted whisper. "I've never heard you sound so…"

"Miserable?" House answered. Pause. "Terrified?" Another pause. "Alone?" The last word was eerily empty. "I bat an eye and someone dies. I killed Amber. I almost killed him."

"You didn't kill Amber." Cuddy met House's gaze, unsure of how to continue. Yes, House had presumably been a total ass to Wilson, forcing him to a point of feeling completely isolated and alone when he was most vulnerable. But was it fair, or even accurate, to pin the entirety of Wilson's suicide attempt on House? Of course it wasn't.

House continued without letting Cuddy finish. "People can be broken, or have things that break them down over time. It's when they lose a sense of community that they feel all is lost. The bullied high school kid feels left out, so she sticks her head in an oven. The post-traumatic soldier comes home and no one understands him, so he fills himself with lead. A successful doctor loses a woman he truly loves, and his best friend tells him he's a moron for being upset." He dumped his head into his lap again. "If you were wondering, the best friend is actually the moron," he added as an afterthought.

Cuddy said nothing, simply placing her hand on top of House's, offering a gentle stroke. "You saved his life," was all she said.

"After I almost killed him." House tilted his head back and closed his eyes, searching feebly for peace.

* * *

He awoke with a start. _7__:01_. The clock on the wall had mocked him for an hour or so into the early morning, but eventually he had succumbed to a few hours of dreamless sleep. Cuddy had insisted he go home – had gone home herself – but House remained glued to the uncomfortable chair of the waiting room, letting Wilson sleep off the narcotic stupor he had forced himself into.

Seven hours, though, should've been enough time, House assumed, considering the fluids, the stomach pumping, the charcoal. Was it enough time to prepare House for what he was about to walk into? There wasn't an answer for that, and he knew it.

He pushed his aching body from the chair, surprised when his limbs didn't take the shape of the thing. His thigh was stiff, his head was pounding, and his heart was sad. It was strange to think the events of the previous night had happened. Even stranger that House felt such a range of emotions that he hadn't experienced in a while.

The room they had placed him in was small, but quiet, appropriate for his situation. The blinds were shut, per Cuddy's orders, and as few doctors and staff as possible were notified of his condition. He would live – it was certain. He would practice, as long as he accepted the counseling they offered him. He just needed to get through the next couple of months without going for a second round of taking himself out.

The sun was just beginning to poke its obnoxiously happy face through the windows. The glass of the door gave way as House struggled toward it, his joints cracking as he advanced into the room. Wilson was still asleep, but his stats were normal. Too bad they didn't have a measurement for the remarkable headache he was about to feel.

Never sure how to handle awkward silences, House elected to advance across the room and select the bedpan from one of the shelves, dropping it noisily and intentionally to the floor. It landed with an ear-shattering clatter. Wilson jumped as if he had been electrocuted, and then immediately regretted his reflexive reaction. A hand found his forehead as his mind caught up with where he was, why he was, and what had happened. When it did, his expression instantly changed to one of shame and sorrow.

It was uncomfortable. Neither of them could deny it.

House's mind was dancing, trying to pick words that would suffice to close the gap that had formed between them. Wilson was ashamed of himself, House could tell, but whether it was because of the incident or because House had been the one to find him was anybody's guess.

He decided it was best to skip the introductions. "You tried to use the gun," House stated, but not in his usual mocking tone. It was softer. Patient, even.

Wilson stared into his clasped hands, clammy with panic and nervousness. He nodded his head somberly, nothing to add to the statement.

House continued in the same tone. "But you missed." Another pause, another mile of space and time between them. As strong as he tried to come off, as indifferent as he worked to be, House could not unsee the image of Wilson on his bathroom floor with a gun inches from his left hand. "Not to worry, because the pills and the booze did the job alone."

Clearly less prepared to talk about it than House was, Wilson pressed his head into his palms, shaking his head. He continued shaking, seeming to be at a loss for words. "I'm sorry," he uttered, and, for the first time since Amber's death, Wilson erupted into sobs.

House froze in his place for a moment, still standing over the loud-mouthed bedpan. His breath caught in his throat but then sought its way out, flowing into the stagnant air of the room.

"You've watched me die plenty of times." House's way of comforting him.

"Not from suicide," Wilson managed.

This brought a genuine half-smile to House's lips. "Yes," House sarcastically agreed, "because running into an outlet with a pocketknife isn't considered suicide."

"They were all for medical reasons!" Wilson argued. "Never because you were so pathetic that you couldn't hold yourself together!"

The tears came again, less intense, but still present. House found himself limping toward the bedside, unsure of what his motives were.

"You know how I say everybody lies?"

Wilson nodded mid-sob.

"Everyone's also an idiot."

He choked on laughter.

House leant forward toward his friend, stalling for a moment. Was he really going to do this? Was he going to allow himself to feel, for the first time in a long time, that he wasn't in control; that maybe his emotions were dictating his actions? In a split-second decision, he committed.

Gregory House wrapped his arms around Wilson and gave a hug.

The action almost immediately ceased the sobs from the younger doctor. This may have been the second time in the history of their long and enduring friendship that House willingly initiated any form of comforting contact toward Wilson, and it was not to be made a minor action.

"Jesus, House," Wilson wiped the tears from his eyes as his friend pulled away. Neither man was addressing the problem at hand, what had set off the night to begin with, but it seemed the two preferred it that way; at least for now. "I must've scared the shit out of you to be getting the royal treatment."

Typical Wilson, coming up with the worst possible thing to say for the moment, but House nodded his head anyway, turning his eyes away. "Not every day you realize you were minutes away from killing someone."

Wilson turned his head to the side. "And here was I, assuming that was part of your job description."

House shook his head once, a thoughtful gesture he reserved for moments of humility. "Not somebody you love." He turned quickly enough to miss Wilson's jaw fall open, disbelief written on every single pore of his face. "Get some rest," House ordered, and let the door slide shut behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

House was late to work. Not that this was a new thing. The days he was late, however, he didn't usually look as if he had slept in the ER.

After the touching scene with Wilson, he had returned to his own apartment for the first time since the previous morning, collecting clothes for Wilson to change into when he was discharged from the hospital. House took a long, hot shower, made himself a generous cup of coffee and inhaled a bowl of cereal before returning to the Princeton-Plainsboro.

He hadn't made it to his office in time for the second differential, and hadn't heard the results of the CT. Frankly, he found, he couldn't care. Even if his patient had actually been dying, it wouldn't have mattered, eclipsed by the fact that Wilson had almost had.

"Pancreas is fine," Foreman reported as he and Kutner fell into step behind House, who was determinedly limping down the hall. "Colon looked inflamed – Thirteen and Taub are doing an endoscopy to make sure there isn't something we missed in the GI tract. Where did you go last night?"

"And why do you look like you got steam-rolled?" Kutner added.

"Hookers," House stated simply as loud as he could. "Gotta get 'em while they're hot." He pushed his fingers as far into his forehead as his skull would allow. "How can the pancreas be fine if the pancreas is the only thing that could possibly be causing all of these symptoms." Not a question – a statement. "We need to cut her open and check for a tumor."

"Perform an invasive surgery totally unsupported by the CT scan? Are you crazy?"

"Are you actually asking me that question?" His hand went back to his forehead.

"House."

Again with the name-calling. Kutner, this time. Annoyed, House lifted his gaze to examine his fellow's expression. "Is everything okay?" Legitimate concern took over his features.

"Perfect!" House exclaimed. "I've got an uncooperative black man resisting authorities. Should I call the SWAT team?"

As if on cue, their beepers, ever synchronized, sang out their brilliant tune, piercing the air like the screech of a hawk. Foreman pulled his own from his waist and almost reflexively looked to House.

"Let me guess. It was her not-pancreas?"

* * *

Idly, House's hands found his tennis ball. He rotated it slowly in his palms before tossing it toward the wall, distracting himself with the absent-minded activity of one-man wallball.

Eventually, his mind began to wander. Wilson was still in the ER, presumably sleeping off the remainder of the toxins, and also presumably being closely observed by anyone with any sort of medical degree. The biggest risk of suicide attempt is directly following a suicide attempt, he vaguely recalled. It didn't seem like Wilson to give up all hope – again, his occupation itself reeked of it – and something was tugging quietly at his neurons, begging them to fire quickly enough to make the connection he knew was waiting to be made.

Another five minutes of tossing met with nothing but white noise in his head.

He had called around ten-thirty. It had taken House forty-five long, pathetic minutes to patch together the pieces. He arrived at Wilson's around eleven thirty. That meant it had taken the moron a half hour to finish killing the fifth, another five or so to pussy down the Vicodin, and another ten to hit the floor and role in bile.

When had the gun come into play? The ball was hitting the wall now, returning loyally to his palms each time. When had he even bought the gun? Did he even know how to fire a gun? House knew that for most mortal beings who weren't familiar with combat, a loaded gun was a dangerous weapon. Even if the damn thing was locked, people would avoid it like the plague in fear of accidental maiming. Wilson was no different.

The epiphany came. Such an epiphany that House forgot to catch the stupid tennis ball, which consequently nailed him on the forehead.

Wilson _was _no different, and that was the beautiful part about it. He'd picked up the gun and panicked. Even if he hadn't been drunk, he would've panicked. Looking down the barrel of something so permanent had forced him to realize, while destroying his liver and shutting down his heart, that he didn't actually want to die. He had turned the gun at the last moment and fired.

A small smile played upon House's lips. Not of cleverness or bragging rights, but something as genuinely simple as relief.

* * *

Like boomerangs, the team always managed to find its way back to his office.

"Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketoic syndrome," Kutner spewed out, desperate for something to say. "Not comatose yet, but –"

"Diabetes but not diabetes," Thirteen commended. "Making strides, are we?"

"Considering her blood sugar isn't one _thousand_, I would consider that to be another far-fetched suggestion from the Indian." Reflexively, he brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. "We need to do exploratory surgery, check out her pancreas – there's something wrong there that we can't see."

"It would've showed up on the CT," Foreman countered, aggravation evident in his voice.

"She couldn't even get through an _endoscopy_," House argued. "Her pancreas is failing for some reason that the CT couldn't pick up. Anybody got a better idea?"

His outburst was met with silence.

"Fantastic," he breathed. "I'll be back with the green light." He turned and left the room.

Thirteen looked after him, disgust evident on her features. "What's his problem today?"

"Other than the usual intangibles?" Taub wondered. "The world may never know."

"Something must've happened," Kutner said. "He looks like he slept in his car or something. Something's up." He paused for a moment, then lit up with an idea. "Wilson's not here today."

* * *

House walked slowly and quietly into Cuddy's office. This was uncharacteristic of him, he noticed afterward, though it was too late to compensate without looking like he was trying too hard. "Good morning," he said after a moment, dropping like a stone into one of the chairs in her office. "Or should I say goodnight, considering I'm liable to fall asleep in this chair?" He closed his eyes and leant backward miserably. Cuddy looked up from her paperwork. The bags were potent beneath her eyes, too.

"How's Wilson?" she asked. She was concerned, he could tell – the paperwork she was doing wasn't due for another couple of weeks, meaning she'd been plowing through form after form in an attempt to distract herself.

"Don't know, don't care. Haven't seen him since he rose again in fulfillment of the scripture," House said off-handedly. "I need to cut an eighteen-year-old girl open and play with her accessory organs. It doesn't matter what you say, but according to the rules, I need to 'get your permission.'" He made air quotes.

"You haven't _seen _him?" Cuddy asked, incredulous. "I was leaving him alone because I didn't want to smother him. You're leaving him alone because you're being a child."

This genuinely hurt House, though he was not about to let her see how much. He picked a piece of lint from the chair, rolling it absently between his thumb and forefinger. "Interesting that it doesn't occur to you that maybe if I _were _to go speak to him, I'd just make things worse," he said carefully. He flicked the lint across the room, watching as it sailed and landed on the carpet.

Cuddy sighed. "CT was clean. Why do you want to – "

"Trying to recreate the game of Operation, only in real life," House replied sarcastically. "I have a bet with Foreman that Kutner will electrocute himself before Taub does." He rolled his eyes. "Because _nothing _else fits, and if we sit around staring at each other, this can quickly _become _fatal, and I wouldn't like another life on my hands. Pancreatitis. Peptic ulcers. Anything. Something, because it's better than the nothing we have right now."

"Is she even complaining of abdominal pain? GI problems?"

"She's training for a _marathon_!" House was yelling now, in a way he only did when he was getting defensive. "Of _course _she has GI problems. Either that or the endorphins are masking it. We cut her open and find nothing, fine, you get the satisfaction. But if we _don't _cut her open and there _is _something, then her blood is on your hands."

House pushed himself to his feet, fuming with anger at someone who had appeared to be his comrade the night before. She was being a moron because she thought he was hurting. So what? Maybe he was. That didn't mean he didn't have a job to do.

He reached the door and threw it open, taking a single step before she finally spoke, as he knew she would. "Visit Wilson, and you can do your surgery," she muttered at his back.

In any other situation, House would've smiled in triumph. Instead, he simply called Foreman, stepped into the elevator, and prepared himself for confrontation.

* * *

"You didn't miss," House announced as he walked into the room. He had paced around the corner for a solid five minutes or so before finally deciding on what it is he wanted to say, but when he actually entered the room, the exact opposite spewed out of his mouth.

Wilson was changing into the jeans and tee House had brought him – the jeans too baggy and long, the shirt too wide and took dark. His expression was lost somewhere in his thoughts. "I'm not doubting your aim is bad, but you can't really miss when you're inches away from a head as big as yours."

Wilson exhaled shakily. His embarrassment hadn't faded in the slightest. If possible, it seemed _worse _than it had been before. "Glad you're back to your old self," he said, noisily zippering the bag and reaching for his shoes.

"You were already half in the bottle when you called me, so a half hour later the liquor must've set in fully, and that's around the time I realized you were prepared to off yourself," House explained easily, logic ever in his favor. "The Vicodin and Smirnoff did their happy dance, but not even that could've made you miss from point-blank." He stopped. Started again. "You realized you didn't actually want to die."

Wilson froze in place, his shoe half on his foot. He diverted his eyes to the floor and opened his mouth to speak. When nothing came out, he shrugged, and resumed putting his shoes on.

House was stunned into silence himself. Wilson had nothing to say. He'd been right – he had figured out the puzzle – so he should feel like gloating. Why did he feel like he'd said the wrong thing?

They sat there silently for a while. Wilson finished putting on his shoes, folded up his bed sheets for the nurse, double checked that everything was in his bag. His face was tight, as if he were trying to hold his expression together in fear of busting up again. House couldn't force himself to say anything; instead he observed his friend as he tried to keep himself busy.

Both men jumped at the sound of House's beeper, slicing through the pregnant air like a siren. For a split second, House debated saying something else, or placing a hand on Wilson's back to comfort him. Instead, as always, he turned and left the room, nothing left to say.

* * *

They were standing just outside the OR, just as confused as they'd been before. "Opened her up and the pancreas looked fine," Chase reported, still in his scrubs from the procedure. "Whole abdomen looked fine. Had a small heart attack while she was open, so we had to finish up, but I'd assume that – "

"New symptom," House announced. They began the trip to his office, loading one by one into the elevator. House jammed the button to close the doors. "Myocardial infarction. Go."

Thirteen looked at him as if he'd just started tap dancing. "Are you serious? Cardiac problems in non-cardiac surgery are extremely common. If we treat this like it's a symptom we're wasting our time. We don't even have an _inkling _of an idea what's wrong with her."

"I'll have more of an inkling once we figure out what the heart attack means," House answered.

"It means she just had surgery and had complications!" Thirteen countered. The doors to the elevator opened, and House shoved through them, leaving her behind him.

Kutner piped in. "Beta blockers usually prevent cardiac problems, if they weren't administered properly –"

"I gave her the beta blockers," Chase interrupted passionately, shutting down Kutner's idea. "And don't suggest that I didn't, because I know that I did."

"Ultrasound her heart," House ordered, rounding the corner near his office. "We need to figure out..." House trailed off, his train of thought interrupted by the lonely figure in his office. Wilson, looking miserable and confused. House turned to his team, any and all concern of his previous statement abandoned. "Go," he commanded quietly. He didn't need to say anything else – the doctors retreated, not one casting a look back.

House inhaled as deeply as he could without physically harming himself and walked into his office. Wilson turned to face him, his eyes sad and tired. Neither man said a word – House reached over his desk for his keys and walked out the door, Wilson following like a loyal puppy behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Thank you so much, everyone, for sticking around for this albeit short though lovely journey. I hope I have kept everyone in-character and made my readers happy! This is the final installment of _Everybody Hurts _ - title credit goes to the fabulous REM song of the same name.

Sorry the ending his awful – I've never known how to write a good final line.

* * *

The drive was miserably long, though it was probably only ten or fifteen minutes to Wilson's place, give or take. House drove with purpose, doing his best to keep his periphery off of Wilson, who was trying (and failing) to keep any sort of emotion from reaching his eyes. He was studying the familiar landscape, watching trees and mailboxes pass as House drove, distracting himself from the place he was returning to.

House was speeding, his foot like lead on the gas pedal, and he considered humorlessly the odds of getting pulled over at such a tense time. What would he possibly say? I'm sorry, officer, I'm bringing this man back from the hospital because he attempted suicide? He snorted to himself at the image of this, then realized his insensitivity and tried to mask it with a cough. If he were being honest with himself, he would admit that he'd probably punch the cop in the face and then do a good amount of jail time.

He whipped into the driveway, just as he had the night before, pulling beside his own motorcycle. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he swallowed it down, forcing himself to forget the dread, the insanity.

With a sigh, he shut the car off and pulled himself out of the seat, putting a generous amount of weight onto his cane. His leg was throbbing as if it had a heartbeat of his own. His forehead seemed to be miming it. Slamming the door shut, he turned to Wilson, observing as he gathered his things and started toward the building.

Dressed in House's clothing, Wilson seemed to be a different man. Less professional, less put together. More human. With his hair spiked in all sorts of directions and stubble growing around his lips and nose, he could almost be _similar _to House. Both were broken in different ways – House mostly by his childhood, Wilson by his adulthood. Both were intelligent. Both were the best in their field. Both, House thought sadly, looking for acceptance, looking for love; though only one of the two could admit it to himself.

When they reached the door, Wilson fumbled for his keys, but House simply reached forward and turned the knob, throwing the door open before him. "Sorry, forgot to lock it," House uttered quietly, the first thing either man had said since earlier that morning in Wilson's hospital room. "Left in a hurry." He was still snide, still sarcastic, but gentle. Sensitive, even.

They ventured into the apartment, Wilson visibly shaky as he stepped into his own living room. The couch pillows sat where they'd supported his drunken form the previous night. The phone sat on the coffee table next to an empty glass, sticky with the residue of alcohol. The bathroom door was still open, the light was still on, the fan was still whirring lightly. Everything was exactly the same as they'd left it, except for the man standing in the midst of it, dressed in his best friend's clothes.

House eyed Wilson with concern. It didn't look like he had any plans to unfreeze. So, House set his cane against the couch and leant forward, picking the phone and glass up off the coffee table. Limping, he returned the phone to the hook and placed the cup in the sink, washing it with a mundane sense of ease, as if he wasn't doing something completely out of character. The normalcy of the act was eerie.

Wilson watched him with an absentminded wonder, as if he wasn't sure where he was. House picked up an empty bag of chips that Wilson had presumably left, tossed it in the trash, and pulled the vacuum from the closet, plugging it in and capturing the crumbs in the whirlwind. Wilson remained unmoving.

"Just catching up on my chores," House yelled over the scream of the vacuum. "I was hoping I'd get a raise in my allowance." He shrugged dramatically and shut off the machine, winding the cord up and returning it to its home in the hall closet.

Wilson then seemed to snap out of it, placing his bag on the couch and scratching the back of his neck. House faced him, maybe a yard or so away, and tilted his chin. "Alright?" he asked.

Wilson nodded once, as if he were unsure, and then did it a second time, and a third. "I'm fine," he answered, but the timbre of his voice did not indicate that he was all that fine.

"Fantastic," House said. He looked toward the bathroom. "Next up is the scene of the crime."

But Wilson was sinking into the couch cushions, dumping his head into his hands and shaking his head. "House," he said, a lone syllable in the shrinking room. "What is going on with me?"

His words were empty and broken in a way that would normally disgust House, make him turn away in fear of contagion of the emotion. But now, coming from a hurting Wilson, it broke something in him, and he found himself on the couch, with little to say to comfort his friend.

Awkwardly, he wrapped a long arm around Wilson's shoulders, squeezing the far one in support. Wilson folded like a house of cards against his friend's side, coming to pieces on the living room furniture. House didn't have anything to say, but didn't need to – his presence seemed to be enough for Wilson, who had sufficiently cried himself out in a gruelingly long five minutes.

The pair sat uncomfortably for a moment after, Wilson unsure of how to pull away, of how to deal with this new and improved Gregory House who was tolerant of actual emotions.

"Don't get used to this," House said, breaking the silence and pushing himself to his feet. His shirt was wet, his body stiff from sitting still for so long. "The touchy-feelies are giving me the heebie-jeebies." He started stalking away, heading toward the bathroom, before stopping. He didn't turn around. "Now, you need to get over it."

He pushed the bathroom door completely open, resisting the urge to vomit everywhere when he discovered Wilson's day-old sickness all over the floor. Sighing agitatedly, he pulled a can of bathroom cleaner from under the sink and coated the floor in it. He grabbed a towel from the closet and lay it over the mess, dropping to his knees beside it.

Wilson appeared behind him, no longer looking as if he were in a stupor. "I've got it," he said, his voice strong, steady; Wilson-like. He knelt next to House and continued to wipe the floor, balling up the towel when it had been used to its full capacity. He grabbed the roll of paper towels from under the sink and wiped up the remainder, spraying the disinfectant one final time over the linoleum. Wilson gathered the soiled towels and walked into the kitchen, shoving them into a trash bag.

House rose to his feet and stepped into the bathtub, inspecting the bullet hole in the shower wall. It was stuck in there fairly deep. All of the shower tile would need to be replaced, maybe the studs and the drywall too. Wilson walked into the bathroom and sucked in a breath, then exhaled it slowly.

"I'll get the pliers," he said quietly, and disappeared momentarily. When he returned, he stepped into the tub next to House, loosening the vicegrip and placing it over the bullet.

"Doubt that thing's going to budge," House observed. Wilson heaved as hard as he could and nearly lost his balance. House remained silent. "Let me guess… you don't want to explain to the repairman why you tried to kill your shower."

Wilson didn't respond.

"Next time you try to take yourself out, make it a little less girly," House suggested. "If you had actually shot yourself, that's usually one hundred percent effective."

Silence.

"You know," he began again, stepping out of the tub and settling himself on top of the toilet seat, "if I hadn't known you for half my life and watched you overcome not one, not two, but _three _divorces, I might think that marinating in your own grief was your usual way of coping with life's miserable circumstances," House said nonchalantly.

Wilson said nothing again, keeping his back to House as he tried unsuccessfully to remove the bullet from his wall.

"The unfortunate thing is that I _have _known you for half my life, and have watched you overcome difficulty several times in your past. This leads me to believe that the depression is a symptom."

He waited for Wilson to respond. Nothing.

"For what, you say? I knew you'd ask. Hell, it could be anything! Hypothyroidism. Porphyria. Hypopituitarism. Mad cow disease. Lupus –"

"For the love of God, what are you, Web MD? The depression is not a symptom, House!" Wilson bellowed, clawing at his own hair with his hands. "You need to understand that sometimes, people do things that are irrational. Sometimes, people try to hurt themselves. I lost the woman I believed was the love of my life for a stupid, preventable reason. I watched as she realized she was dying – as she _died! _Not everything is a symptom – sometimes, it's the problem!"

Of course he felt that way, House thought. Though he seemed put together, Wilson was no less of a crack head than the rest of them, what with his usually blind optimism and faith in everything that –

As if during a power surge, House's brain shut down, and then lit up again, far brighter than it had before. "But the problem is when the problem looks like a symptom," he uttered. He looked at Wilson. "Are you going to drown yourself in this bathtub if I run off mysteriously?"

Wilson, still angry, closed his eyes and shook his head with force. That was all House needed – he was out the door.

* * *

Plunging the doors open to the hospital room, House limped slowly to his patient's side and held out a small cup with a single pill in it, ignoring the confused look from Thirteen as he did it. She looked at him questioningly, untrustingly, and did not budge. "What?" she simply asked, shrugging her shoulders. "You want me to just _take _that?"

"Carbamazepine," House responded. "Two hundred milligrams. Twice a day, and soon enough you'll be back to running in circles to nowhere."

"She doesn't have epilepsy," Thirteen fired back, annoyed. "We've already ruled that out."

"Who was your attacker?" House asked. "Someone you knew? Someone you didn't know? Someone who doesn't exist?"

The patient looked taken aback. "I don't remember," she said sternly. "I don't remember before, or really much after. I just know I had been beaten up."

"Beaten up? Or just kicked to the curb. I mean that metaphorically, of course, considering you kicked _yourself _to the curb."

"I don't understand."

House pressed a hand to his forehead. "Many people have their first seizure and don't think much of it, let alone notice it. Your run was in daylight. If they didn't find a shred of DNA on you, it's highly unlikely you were actually attacked; your body just feels like it was, and certainly thinks it was."

"That still doesn't explain the hyperglycemia," Thirteen prodded, refusing to believe that the entire team had missed something as elementary as epilepsy. "If anything, hy_po_glycemia would've brought on the seizures."

"That, or Cameron burning her retinas with a penlight in the ER." House paused for a moment and looked his patient in the eyes. "How regular are your periods?"

A brilliant shade of scarlet filled her cheeks and nose. "Is this relevant? I'm an _athlete. _We aren't exactly _regular_."

"On a scale of one to _Cuddy_, how _miserable _of a human being do you become during that special time of the month?"

She froze, sensing he had made some sort of connection. Her voice came quietly. "Ten," she answered. "Definitely a ten."

"So _what_," House gloated, turning his head to face Thirteen, "causes high blood sugar, bad menstrual cramps, and a mustache on our not-so-Kenyan's face?"

The patient self-consciously drew a hand beneath her nose, turning red again. Thirteen's face morphed from one of confusion to understanding as the gears of her mind whirred. "Polycystic ovary syndrome," she breathed.

"And _what_," House continued, "is often linked to PCOS?"

Thirteen refused take the bait.

House shook the lone pill in the cup again, setting it down on the patient's food tray. "The only question left is what came first? The exploding ovaries or the epilepsy?"

* * *

House pulled his car in front of Wilson's place and honked twice. A few seconds later, his figure appeared in the doorway, one hand palm-up in front of him. _What do you want?_ he was asking with his body language. House beckoned him over.

"Get in," he ordered, pushing the door open. Wilson rolled his eyes and slammed it shut.

"I'm not done cleaning up my place," he argued.

"Do I look like I care?"

Wilson sighed and shook his head.

"You hungry?" House asked, ever the ice breaker in the tense times of their friendship. Wilson couldn't resist, and House knew it. Predictably, the younger man smiled and threw open the passenger door, settling himself in the seat. House pulled slowly away from the curb, the windows down as he did.

"_Everybody hurts," _House sang, serenading Wilson sardonically with the song on the radio, an old REM tune, "_...sometimes." _

This got a slight reaction from Wilson, though not what he'd been hoping for.

The sun was setting already; it seemed the day had flew past, despite the lack of sleep that House had gotten. It still seemed like moments ago he had almost lost his friend to suicide in a bathroom. He had almost been too late, he constantly reminded himself, as if it would take some of the pain from Wilson. If House's mystical mind had figured it out five minutes later, he would've been alone.

In reality, he probably would've been half in a bottle of Smirnoff with a Vicodin prescription in his own bathroom.

"I'm feeling better," Wilson said after a few minutes of driving, interrupting House's depressing reverie. He was still in House's clothes, though he looked a bit more comfortable in them now.

House didn't move. "Good," he replied. "I was getting sick of the sob story. Hopefully now I can get back to insulting you in all the right ways."

"Thank you," Wilson stated, two words that held a million more within them. House weighed his possible responses, trying to decide what he could possibly say that could set them back on a path of normalcy. Maybe, it occurred to him, this _was _the new normal – maybe Wilson would never be quite the same as he used to be. Maybe House would need to learn softness.

Maybe.

So with a thousand possible responses mingling in the back of his throat, countless ways he could portray this new horizon, he chose the three most reliable words in his arsenal, three words that would ensure that things remained the same.

"You're an idiot."

And they laughed, driving somewhere, nowhere, anywhere, each comforted by the man at his side.


End file.
